Elizabeth Smart Reveals She Is Now a Bodybuilder With Jaw-Dropping Competition Photo
Elizabeth Smart is ready to embrace her body.
Though the activist was admittedly hesitant to share pictures of herself competing in a bodybuilding competition last month, she said the “heartwarming” response from her followers affirmed the reason she ultimately let the world in on her newest hobby.
“I can be sexy, and I can be an advocate. I am more than just one thing,” Elizabeth told Us Weekly in an interview published May 20. “I understand why I was scared to share, but those are the same exact reasons why victims don’t share.”
The 38-year-old added, “I [decided] I should do this because it’s empowering for me, but also maybe it’s empowering for other victims to be like, ‘If Elizabeth Smart can step up on stage in a bikini, I can go report to the police.’”
But while Elizabeth—who was abducted in 2002 and subjected to physical and sexual abuse by her captors before her rescue nine months later—recognizes the confidence that her bodybuilding gives others, she admitted the exercise also has “a vanity aspect to it” after realizing her other hobby of long-distance running was taking a toll on her body.
“I had been running for a long time, and I loved it. But one of my knees was starting to hurt,” she explained, “and on the weekends, when I did my [marathon] training runs, it got to a point where they were just so long that once I finished them, I didn’t want to do anything the rest of the day.”
However, her and husband Matthew Gilmour’s kids Chloe, 11, James, 9, and Olivia, 7, kept her from staying put. As she described it, “I’ve got three little kids who don’t want to just lie on the sofa and eat chips.”
Robyn Maher/Instagram
Plus, bodybuilding has given Elizabeth more agency over her own body.
“I always felt like there was a way I needed to present myself,” she said. “Bodybuilding has helped free me.”
And among the surprises she’s found along her journey, she’s discovered “how incredible the human body actually is.”
“I had three kids, I’ve done so much running, can my body still change?” Elizabeth asked herself. “And to see it happen, wow, it really can.”
Like Elizabeth, read on for more notable names who have undergone huge body transformations.
TikTok / Trevor Larcom
Trevor Larcom
The Fresh Off the Boat alum used to weigh 300 pounds and lost 130, showcasing his journey on TikTok.
TLC
Tammy Slaton
Tammy Slaton may be a star of TLC’s 1,000-Lb. Sisters, but she didn’t want to be beholden to that title forever.
“I’m down 500 pounds now, around 500,” the 38-year-old said in a confessional on an April 2025 episode of her show. “When I was at my heaviest, I was 700-plus pounds. Right now, I’m weighing in at 238.”
She underwent bariatric surgery in 2022, a choice her physician has praised as the right one for her.
“Tammy has consistently demonstrated her dedication to making sustainable lifestyle changes to maximize the benefits of her surgery,” Dr. Eric Smith told People in October 2024. “I've emphasized the importance of making small, daily adjustments to ensure not only her continued progress but also her long-term success. She's truly committed to her health journey.”
Erika Goldring/Getty Images, Taylor Hill/FilmMagic
Jelly Roll
It seems as if every time Jelly Roll hits a red carpet, he’s down a sizable slice of weight.
“I started at 540 pounds and I was 357 pounds this morning,” the singer born Jason DeFord told Pat McAfee in April 2025 during the ESPN host's Big Night Aht live show. “I’m gonna lose another 100 pounds and go skydiving with my wife in Sweden, baby!"
The 6-foot-1 artist admittedly needed to overhaul his relationship with food to get where he wanted to go. "I've always said that I believe obesity is directly connected to mental health," he explained on an October 2024 episode of On Purpose With Jay Shetty. "I know how easy it is for people to go, 'Just quit eatin' so much, just work out, it's so easy!' I wish I looked at food that way.”
Weight was still “the mountain” in front of him, Jelly Roll noted, but his lifestyle changes were working.
"I'm learning, I'm being very diligent with it,” he said. “I'm taking it serious, I'm drinking a bunch of water, I'm cold plunging, I'm eating right, I'm doing good."
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Al Roker
Al Roker wasn’t kidding around with the title of his cookbook Recipes to Live By.
Because having lost a hard-fought 100 pounds, the longtime TODAY weatherman literally walks the walk (aiming for at least 10,000 steps a day), watching what he eats and fitting in some sort of exercise on a daily basis.
“My mantra is ‘something is better than nothing,’” he told People in a June 2025 interview. “Maybe you’ll be running marathons or entering weight-lifting contests, but I think most people just want a level of fitness that improves their quality of life.”
Roker underwent gastric bypass surgery in 2002 to get his fitness journey underway, but, he acknowledged, “There’s no magic bullet.”
Surgery is “not the end,” he advised. “You’re still going to have to put in the work.”
Mitchell Leff/Getty Images, Christopher Polk/Variety via Getty Images
Jason Kelce
While previously known for the tush push, former Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce has been busy showing off his buff bod.
Not that the athlete wasn’t in fighting shape during his 13-year career in the NFL, but he’s down at least 25 pounds from his playing weight of 295, sharing during the 2025 Truist Championship pro-am golf tournament in Philly that he weighed around 270.
All of which is part of his retirement plan. “I feel like for some reason, 250 to 260 feels like I'll be still big and be happy with the way I look without having a six-pack,” Kelce told GQ in June 2024. “But I’ll still be able to have that stature a little bit.”
Really, the most important aspect for the father of four daughters with wife Kylie Kelce was to be able to keep pace with his kids.
Then weighing in at 277, “my back already feels better,” he shared. “My knees already feel better. So another 20 pounds hopefully will make that much more adept at playing with my children.”
Bruce Glikas/Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic, Chelsea Guglielmino/Getty Images
Rosie O'Donnell
It wasn’t just a change of scenery that did the trick for Rosie O’Donnell, who relocated with her family from the U.S. to Ireland.
"I've lost more weight here,” she shared in a March 2025 TikTok. “I am on Mounjaro for my diabetes and one of the side effects is you lose weight.”
The former View cohost had recently gone shopping for better-fitting clothes in Dublin. “I’m one of those people,” she said, “who's always had a weight issue and now that I'm a size large, instead of an XL or a 2XL, I find it shocking.”
JC Olivera/Getty Images, Jazz Jennings/Instagram
Jazz Jennings
Jazz Jennings embarked on a diet-and-fitness journey in 2022, explaining on Instagram two years later, “I finally care about myself after years of neglecting my health. I had truly let myself go when it came to eating. I am so proud of my weight loss, and I feel my confidence radiates through."
In August 2024, the I Am Jazz star shared that she had lost almost 100 pounds and was “so proud” of her progress.
Phillip Faraone/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images, Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Netflix
Christopher Schwarzenegger
It turns out Christopher Schwarzenegger is a chip off the ol’ muscly block.
The youngest of Arnold Schwarzenegger and ex-wife Maria Shriver’s four kids together laid low while he dropped 30 pounds, but now he’s back in action.
“It’s not an overnight thing, but it took a lot of trial and error,” he shared in May 2025 at the Inaugural Beacher Vitality Happy & Healthy Summit, noting that just giving up bread made a big difference. “And even still to this day, when [I look at] before and after photos, I don’t feel like I’m an ‘after’ yet.”
Meanwhile, Christopher did not let a certain seven-time Mr. Olympia in on his plan.
“I could never go and say to him, 'You’re overweight,'” dad Arnold told The Times in June 2025. "We just kept introducing healthy foods. We introduced him always to the gym and all of that kind of stuff. And then, out of nowhere, he decided that he wanted to be lean. And now he is. So that is of course fantastic, the self-discipline and the self-motivation. I always felt one day it will have to come from him—and it did.”
Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images, Leah Puttkammer/FilmMagic
Chrissy Metz
Chrissy Metz doesn’t like to run “unless I’m being chased,” she quipped, but she’s a big fan of strength training—and working out is part of the regimen that resulted in her losing 100 pounds.
“I want to age the best way that I can, and I want to be strong,” the This Is Us alum told DailyMail.com in April 2025. “And that’s really the impetus behind any of it.”
To Metz, aging gracefully means “staying strong and flexible,” so she tries to be active every day.
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John Goodman
Being a big teddy bear of a guy was part of the package when John Goodman starred on Roseanne in the 1990s, at one point “pushing 400” pounds, as he told David Letterman in 2010. By the time The Conners premiered in 2018, however, family patriarch Dan Conner had made a few lifestyle adjustments.
Goodman quit drinking in 2007, the first step on his road to getting in better shape, while his favorite activities included boxing and walking his dogs.
“I’m breaking a sweat but I’m not going nuts,” he told People in 2010, sharing he had lost about 100 pounds working out six days a week and cutting sugar out of his diet.
Overall, the 6-foot-2 actor has lost about 200 pounds since he was at his peak weight.
“I just got tired, sick and tired of looking at myself,” Goodman told ABC News in 2016. “You’re shaving in the mirror and you don’t want to look at yourself. It gets dangerous.”
Ron Galella Collection for Getty Images, Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey has been sharing the highs and lows of her weight loss journey for decades.
From donning skinny jeans and rolling out a wagon loaded with 67 pounds of fat to wow her Oprah Winfrey Show audience in 1988, to buying a stake in WeightWatchers in 2015, she has used her platform to keep the conversation going.
And taking on the topic du jour, she revealed in March 2024 on An Oprah Special: Shame, Blame and the Weight Loss Revolution that, along with eating smaller portions and staying active, she was taking medication to help regulate her weight.
"It's not just one thing,” she said of her secret to staying fit, “it's multiple things.”
Her goal with the special, Winfrey explained, was to “start releasing the stigma and the shame and the judgment—to stop shaming other people for being overweight or how they choose to lose or not lose weight—and more importantly to stop shaming ourselves."
Aaron J. Thornton/Getty Images for BET, Udo Salters/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
Lizzo
Lizzo simply wanted to feel better from head to toe.
“Once I started working out for mental health, to have balanced mental health or endorphins, so that I don't look at myself in the mirror and feel ashamed of myself, and feel disgusted with myself,” the “Good as Hell” singer explained in a May 2023 TikTok, “exercise has helped me shift my mind, not my body.”
She acknowledged in a January 2025 TikTok that she was on an “intentional weight loss journey,” her goal was simply to be the best version of herself.
“Even at the end of my weight loss journey, I'm not going to be considered thin by any means,” Lizzo said. “I will still be considered morbidly obese on the BMI and little bros on the internet are still going to call me 'big backed.' But I will be happy."
A second later, the video jumped to Lizzo exclaiming, “And I am happy,” as she showed off a screen showing her body fat had gone down by 16 percent and she’d shaved 10.5 points from her Body Mass Index (BMI).
“Let this be a reminder that you can do anything—anything—you set your mind to,” she added. “Now I guess it’s time to set new goals.”
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